H.R. 6623 — Community Development Block Grant Equity Act of 2025

This section revises the formula for allocating Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to metropolitan cities, urban counties, and nonentitlement areas. (As background, CDBG provides formula block grants to entitlement jurisdictions—metropolitan cities and urban counties—and to states for distribution in nonentitlement areas to support housing rehabilitation, community and economic development, and neighborhood revitalization.) Specifically, the revision (1) bases metropolitan city and urban county allocations on the average of four relative need ratios compared to all metropolitan areas—poverty rate per person in families and elderly households (counted five times), extent of female-headed households with children under age 18 (once), extent of pre-1950 housing occupied by poverty households (three times), and extent of housing overcrowding (once); (2) applies a parallel formula for state nonentitlement area allocations using comparable statewide ratios; (3) in the hold-harmless provision, strikes the overcrowding lag factor and redesignates remaining clauses; and (4) revises CDBG definitions by redefining "poverty" as having income not exceeding the poverty level, striking six prior formula-related definitions (paras. (11)-(16)), and redesignating the remainder as paras. (11)-(18).

This section authorizes appropriations for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) formula grants to states, localities, and Indian tribes under section 106 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5306) of $3.425 billion for FY2026, as adjusted upward for any percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the immediately preceding four calendar quarters, with the same CPI-adjusted amount authorized for each fiscal year through FY2029 (previously authorized $4 billion for FY1993 and $4.168 billion for FY1994). The section strikes the prior provision that appropriated sums remain available until expended.